Most of you guys might be thinking what the hell is ‘OXYMORONS‘. We might have used such words in our day-to-day life but we didn’t bother to know what exactly such words term as. On the personal front, even I wasn’t aware of it and use to tell my friends about such words but never delve into what such words are classified as. Well, this is how Oxford English Dictionary defines oxymoron: A rhetorical figure by which contradictory or incongruous terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression; an expression in its superficial or literal meaning self-contradictory or absurd, but involving a point. Got the hang of it? If yes, then you must be very good at English but there are people like me who need a better way, simpler way to understand such words.

For people like me, this is what oxymoron means – “It consists of two word where the first word contradicts with the second“.

Oxymoron has an interesting etymology. In ancient Greece, oxus meant “sharp; pointed” and moros meant “dull; stupid; foolish.” So the word oxymoron is itself an oxymoron, literally meaning something like “a sharp dullness” or “pointed foolishness.” Technically, the correct plural form of the word is ‘oxymora’, but so many people say oxymoron that it is now generally regarded as an acceptable usage.

Richard Watson Todd, Author of ‘Much Ado about English’ says, “The true beauty of oxymorons is that, unless we sit back and really think, we happily accept them as normal English.” He illustrates his point in the following passage:

It was an open secret that the company had used a paid volunteer to test the plastic glasses. Although they were made using liquid gas technology and were an original copy that looked almost exactly like a more expensive brand, the volunteer thought that they were pretty ugly and that it would be simply impossible for the general public to accept them. On hearing this feedback, the company board was clearly confused and there was a deafening silence. This was a minor crisis and the only choice was to drop the product line.

Sometimes they are used to create some sort of drama for the reader or listener, and sometimes they are used to make the person stop and think, whether it’s to laugh or to ponder. One famous oxymoron is the phrase “the same difference.” This phrase qualifies as an oxymoron because the words “same” and “difference” have completely opposite meanings. Therefore, bringing them together into one phrase produces a verbally puzzling, yet engaging effect.

I’m sure your mind started to stroll just by seeing the name of the post. Isn’t it strange that our mind springs to the topic which we use or hear and it deduces so many questions/assumptions/theories or call whatever you like it, of its own within one thousandth of the second. Whenever you see or hear the word ‘LUCK’, your mind races to many things which you have experienced and raises questions which are hypothetical and debatable ones. Like many of you, whenever I hear the word ‘luck’, following are the questions which my mind brings up from the memory palace (that’s what I like to call where all the information is stored) within a fraction of seconds. what is luck? Is there really such a thing as luck?And why do some people consider themselves as lucky while others feel unlucky? Do some people have more of it than others (just as some people are better at pool than others)?

Have you ever felt lucky? Most of us do, from time to time. You have probably felt unlucky too. Having said that, being “lucky” or “unlucky” is also a question of perspective, someone having experienced a serious car accident can see the situation as “unlucky” after breaking an arm, completely destroying his/her brand new car they bought with a loan the week before. On the other hand, this same person could say, “I’m very lucky to be here.”

Everyone wants luck, but not everyone believes in it. Luck enables us to accomplish in a very short time what we thought would take ages. Couple of scenario’s which I remember are: When I’m eager to speak with a person to share an important bit of news and by luck the person calls me or arrives physically just at that moment, A seemingly chance encounter opens up a new career opportunity, creates a monetary windfall, or brings us into contact with a very special person. Life is full of such inexplicable coincidences or are they mere coincidences? All of us welcome them when they happen and many secretly pray for more of them to occur :-), but still many of us doubt whether luck really exists.

Each of us tries to understand and explain the reasons for our accomplishments in terms of our talents, capacities, knowledge, skill, resourcefulness, contacts, hard work, and karma. Where these fail to achieve the result, we often attribute it to bad luck. When something happens unexpectedly, we sometimes attribute it to good luck. A chance meeting with an old acquaintance or total stranger, an interesting article in the newspaper, a precious information overheard, a cancelled flight, misplaced article, bad weather that alters our plans, and countless other events appear to happen by themselves for no apparent reason to some. If they result in a favourable outcome, we say we were lucky. If they lead to failure, we speak of bad luck.

Very recently, I was browsing through the internet and happened to find a video which intrigued me and made me think otherwise on the perception I had on luck. Harsha Bhogle, one of the popular cricket commentator around the world is among one of the favourites whom I admire and his take on any aspect of life is refreshing and unqiue. He tries to bring the same in everything he does such as while commentating, while taking sports interviews etc.. He was at an alumni of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and went back there to give a speech on How to Achieve Excellence. I would suggest you all to check out the video where he covers many aspects of excellence, talent, attitude, work ethics, passion, luck etc. One of the topic he brought up was LUCK. This is what he said about luck: “Luck is a combination of preparation and recognition (of opportunities)“. The harder you practice, the luckier you get. You make things happen for yourself. One example which justifies the above statement is by taking example of players like Sachin Tendulkar, Messi, Ronaldo, Federer etc. These are the players who are best in whatever sport they are into but what differentiates them with others is the preparation and sense the opportunity whenever it is presented. Messi isn’t lucky that he scores a goal very often, its his preparation and sensing that the ball would come to him (thinking way ahead) contributes to the factor.

It was luck but there were a couple of other factors too. There was genuine human kindness, the person who called me could have as well said, no I won’t. Or why should I, but there was genuine human kindness in it. But he didn’t give me a seat, he gave me an opportunity. Finally you have to take the opportunity as it comes, luck gives you an opportunity it doesn’t give you the result. I’m not a big fan of luck, to be honest, because, eventually you have to help yourself. Sometimes you might find the opportunity coming your way, but when it comes you must be ready. And you can only be ready if you have worked hard. When a lot of people say that they are unlucky, I feel they have actually not been ready for the opportunity. Therefore, in addition to being open and interactive, being able to detect opportunities is also a competitive advantage.

To be in LOVE or being loved is perhaps one of the most magical feelings in the world. For love is capable of filling your life with such colours that were previously thought to be unimaginable. And this day makes it even more special to all those people who are in love. My idea for the valentine’s day is nothing special or out of the blue but to keep it simple. I’m kind of a guy who want to express my love to her but my upbringing and nature restricts me not to do. As a matter of fact for today, I just dropped a message to her which said “Happy Valentine’s Day..” and nothing else. I tried reaching her but my luck wasn’t on my side and ended up sending only a message. I wanted to do so many things for her but my lack of expressing and inability to showcase my love is my biggest drawback. But she understands the love I have for her in my heart which is important in any relationship. I have seen guys/gals trying to do something unique for their valentine and make it so special which will be remembered forever. Getting inked, celebrating at some party, expensive gifts, romantic dinner, love cards etc. are the common things with this generation. But what people forgot the most is the WORDS which will make her realise the LOVE you have for her in you. I’m not saying that people who do above things are faking it or showing it off but it would really pay off if you write a letter with your own words or even a simple poem/stanza dedicated to her.

Words have incredible power in our lives. For one, they provide us with a vehicle for expressing and sharing our experiences with others especially your valentine and days like this make it even more important. Most of us don’t realize, however, that the words you habitually choose also affect what you experience. Words that you speak and write, can easily make or break your companionship. We live and breathe words. This is why, writing a sweet love letter to your valentine can never be old-fashioned and I’m sure it will reach your valentine’s heart. Let your valentine feel trapped by the magic of your words.

I did write poems for my valentine (For U) and sing songs for her which made her go weak on her knees and cry. I still remember the moments when I first sung the song ‘I’m in Love’ from the movie ‘Once upon a time in Mumbai’ on the phone (with my horrible tone), she didn’t speak the whole time until the call finished. I was bit perplexed with her reaction of a simple and sober “Its good”. Back of my mind, I felt bit disappointed for the cold response I received from her which I wasn’t expecting and felt I didn’t do what it takes. But once the call ended, I got a message which said “Thanks for the lovely song, it really showed the love and care for me in your voice. Love u”, by seeing that message my heart was content and there was some satisfaction about it. It’s such messages and reactions which make your day and moments; they will be cherished and never forgotten. That day I realised that sometimes voices doesn’t need to speak, its your words that matters.

In one of the presentation sessions attended at my office, I learnt about this topic “Power of NO”. This topic intrigued me and I was curious to know more about it. I did my search and found out many things about ‘No’ which majorly focused on why, when and how to say to ‘NO’ at any situation, say at work, personal front, in a discussion etc.

Why to say NO?

NO – such a powerful two letter word in the dictionary. Many of us have been raised to think that shooting down someone’s idea or bluntly saying “no” to a request is rude. And while it can be impolite to be dismissive, a habit of saying “yes” to everything can lead to unnecessary stress that holds us back. Saying ‘NO’ is a hidden power because it is both easily misunderstood and difficult to engage. It’s likely that we are unaware of the surge of strength we draw from No because, in part, it is easily confused with negativity. There is a general tendency across humans that whenever we say a blunt NO, they think that the person is being rude and cruel which makes his image look bad and not a kind hearted person.

The word ‘No’ directs us to contain our urges and manage our priorities within an iron fist of reason. All our lives we may work on refining, tweaking it, building it, shoring it up. The huge rewards to say No—not too rigidly, but often enough are productivity and peace of mind. The power of No is in that pay-off where you have peace of mind which yields more productivity.

When to say NO?

NO is a moment of clear choice. It announces, however indirectly, something affirmative about you. In simpler terms, No says, “This is who I am; this is what I value; this is what I will and will not do; this is how I will choose to act.” It says that while each of us interacts with others, and loves, respects, and values those relationships, we do not and cannot allow ourselves always to be influenced by them. If you are in IT industry (like me) and in the process of career advancement, it becomes even hard to say ‘No’ when your manager or director asks to take up a new task even tough you have enough in you plate already. This is where people tend to say ‘yes’ (or say forced to say ‘yes’) even if they don’t want to take it up because saying ‘No’ would create a negative impact on their personality.

Continuing on the example of working in IT industry, One of the other things noticed regularly is most of us have a pretty strong desire to be seen as friendly and helpful at work, and we don’t want to leave a co-worker stuck with a difficult problem (especially if its a female co-worker :)). Even if you couldn’t care less what your co-workers think, you still want to be the guy who gets things done. The guy people call on to save the day when the chips are down. That “people are depending on me” feeling goes very deep into what drives us as men — being relied on is important to feeling manly. So, in turn, we want to feel reliable, and that means always jumping in, even when we can’t or don’t know what we are jumping into. So, its important to draw a line when to say No.

One of the best example that came to me when thought about it, was a 2-year kid’s nature. This might have happened with almost all of you guys for sure, when you try to pull the child from there parents especially mom, the kid starts to hurl loudly NOOOOOOO which shows his/her will, his/her wishes to be with mom is nothing but a blunt NO by the kid. Thus, drawing a line and saying NO (in their way of crying) to the people even though their intentions are not bad.

How to say NO?

Simply, No is not a warm send. It’s tough to deliver, in large part because we have a gut sense of how it will be received—not well. So we have to wrap it with layers where in we are saying NO to them but in a different way. The example which would make you understand the above said words is ‘Oreo cookie communication strategy’, in which you say something positive (“You are such a warm and charming person”), sandwich in the filling of a tactful No (“I don’t think you and I have a romantic future”), and then end with another cookie (“I have so enjoyed the time we’ve spent together; you really make me laugh”).

It’s time to describe about the female protagonist of the story. This paragraph is about her nature, her initial reactions about me and friendship between us. She is fair in complexion, thin, has average height but of all a wonderful heart. She was brought up in a very conservative family with so many rules and restrictions, thus have fear for smallest of things. She is not a gal who would mingle soon with anyone but takes so much time to think and convince herself. The one thing that stands out is her wonderful nature. I saw myself in her (introvert, conservative, family bounded etc.) which pulled me towards her like magnet. As said in earlier post, we were hesitated to talk at first then we gradually had small talks whenever we met. She got to know from others that I have fallen for her which created tension in her mind. She treated me as a friend, not even a friend completely to be frank enough. After hearing that, she ignored me at first and when friend’s bullied her by taking my name she got irritated. She use to hate me and used to get angry & irritated whenever someone takes my name (which is was not aware).

I was happily living in my dream world where we were good friends. But luckily that perception of hers faded away and after talking to me at few more functions where we met and hearing from others that I’m good person she started treating me as her friend. Those days, there was so much difficulty to communicate because mobile phone were not the trend yet as they were too costly. Only people who can afford, use to purchase mobiles and my dad had a NOKIA phone (it was more like cordless phone-very heavy and thick). So, depending upon the time spent whenever we met, decided the fate of our friendship. Whenever we used to talk, my cousin’s & other friends used to observe and pull either of us legs which gave hints to her that I’m interested in her.

Eventually, she got to know about my love when she was eight (and I was tenth-2003) and how serious I was about her. The seed of love ( or say like) started growing in her which brought us closer but neither of us showed that to each other. Everyone knew that we liked each other now but we didn’t showcase it. This went on for a while until an incident happened which acted as a first actual step in our journey towards LOVE.

After completing the schooling, I joined college to pursue further studies i.e. 12th standard. It was on 12 June 2004, when I got one of the biggest surprise of my life, any guesses? It was a phone call. Dad’s phone rang and when checked, it was uncle (his friend) who was calling. When I received the call, there was a male voice saying to someone to talk (exact words were “baat kar” in hindi) and I was under impression that call might have got connected mistakenly or someone dialled in the number and handing over the phone to uncle but what followed made me dumbstruck. I never expected in my wildest of dreams about such thing happening to me. There was a cute voice saying “hi” which had tremble and also fear in it. I did never talked with her on phone but when I heard her voice saying “hi”, it flashed me like light that it was none other than her. Holy cow! I didn’t believe my luck and was not able to respond when she said hi. It took couple of seconds to come back and ushered hi back to her which had lots of excitement and tinge of fear in it. This was our first call but I was sure this won’t be the last one.

This went for couple of years and love was happening to us like a slow poison. Even though we didn’t meet like regular couples do but still every time we met we resumed from where we left from the previous meet. We always went to the functions where we hoped that we would meet, we took the slimmest changes and sometimes a strong hunch told us that we would meet in that function. And surprisingly, we did meet at some strange functions or off occasions such as funeral, infant’s function etc. Most of them were attending a function/event for a reason every time but we always had one and same reason which was to see or atleast talk few words with each others. Now, it was clearly visible in the words we speak and the way we cared about each others. I was now sure that she started loving me but yet acted as dumb (Girls like it that way).

Everyone has a story to tell about something important which happened in his/her life to others. This is the story of the person whom I have known very closely and as you might have already got a feel of what’s the story about from the name of the post. I know people have heard so many love stories yet each and every one is different and has its own flavour to it. I’m sure that the story I will be narrating is different from others with full of emotions, moments, occasions, incidents etc. which might amuse few people, few might feel like same old story repeated in different angle and some others feel love story with masala marke etc. But hey, it’s a story – original, uncut & uncensored. I have kept it plain & simple and covered only the main aspects of his love life. From now on, the story is narrated from his point of view.

I still remember the day when I first saw her. It’s imprinted in my life like shadow attached to the body. I remember each and every moment of that day like it has happened yesterday. Let me describe how I was back then (even now but improved a bit on style, how to carry myself, ) I’m not so handsome looking nor well built guy to attract people rather being to myself in my own world. One fine day, one of our uncle called my dad and informed about the function at their home. My dad asked about the occasion and agreed to come with family which included dad, mom, two elder sisters and me.

As agreed upon, we visited our uncle’s home around afternoon. My uncle had one daughter and two sons whom I was bit close. After the pooja was completed, we served food to guests for a while. And it was around 4.30 PM when we (uncle’s son’s, me and couple of other friends) sat for the lunch. My uncle’s elder son was sitting beside me, when he brought the topic about her. He pointed towards her and showed me that this is the gal he was referring to. I ignored at first but when he said more about her, I saw her for the first time in my life for a glimpse. She just entered the room carrying food items to serve food for all of us. I was bit shy to look at her but after gathering courage, looked her nicely for few seconds which made me feel like I was watching her for more than a minute. It was that this moment when I my heart and mind first thought about her in sync (which rarely happens :-)). The other thought which ran into my mind is how will a gal like not so handsome, un cool guy like me. I used to look at her whenever she is not seeing me for that whole evening. That night, the same thought came back to me again and my mind made it clear that she won’t fall or even talk with guy like me. I ignored those thoughts and went to sleep. But those days were short lived and I was remembering her frequent enough which was making me nervous and agitated with a tinge of happiness. I was now not getting sleep properly nor had any mood to work or see any movie. Just one thought was running in my mind and it was how to talk with her and make friendship with her.

As my dad had many friends, We use to go to functions regularly. And The sole reason for me to attend those functions was just to see her. There has been many times when I was very happy and times disappointed if she didn’t attend the function. I used to keep my fingers crossed until the last moment of the function hoping she would arrive late. My mind used to come up with reasons like she might have stuck in traffic or waiting for his dad to pick up from home or coming in auto with her relatives. One thing is sure guys, mind is such a thing which will keep your hopes alive if it senses your heart is getting dull. I used to pray God about her and asked him to make us meet and develop friendship or that connect between us. This went on for months and still there was no progress to it.

And like magic, it happened one fine day when there was a function at my aunt’s place. Me, My sisters, my cousin’s and other friends were sitting together and chit chatting when one of our friends brought her to the group. The reason to bring her there was to make us talk together at least for a minute or two and she was unaware of what’s going behind the scenes. It was like a open secret to all where I had fallen for her in the first meet (In simple words, LOVE at first sight). The other strange thing about love is, people around you will know that you love her/him but the person whom you love doesn’t know about it. She rarely looked at me but she got vibes from others that they are up to something when everyone was pulling my leg or indirectly pointing to me for any discussion we had so that she notices me. The process was initiated and I was over joyed with all the happenings.

Gradually things started to move for me. We started to exchange smiles or just a hi or bye whenever we met. The response from her was positive and smiles were genuine. I was happy but not completely because we are not friends yet. My prayers were answered but at very slow pace. The Hi’s and bye’s were converted into how are you?how is your life? Etc. In the span of 1-2 years, we were comfortable with each other meaning we use to talk nicely with each other when an opportunity presented or even in groups. We both were watchful when we talk because people might think something fishy is going on between two of us. But saying that, sometimes I used to get lucky and we use to go for diner with our friends at functions and chit chat without bothering about others. Life started to look beautiful and cheerful with all the things asked for, were beginning to happen.